true of other regiments of volunteers. We are informed by the answer of the Adjutant-General to a resolution of this House, that in a period of from sixty to ninety days after the volunteers had joined the array in the field, their numbers Were re- duced by disease six hundred and thirty-seven, and by discharges, in consequence of sickness and disability, be- tween two and three thousand. This estimate does not include the sick which remain with the army.'' * " I call the attention of this body and of the country to the immense sacrifice of human life now making to carry on this war. The official' documents before us show that twenty-three thousand nine hundred and ninety-eight • Speech. Feb. 13, 1847. App. to Cong. Globe, p. 869.
officers and men entered the service during the first eight months of this war ; that fifteen thousand four hun- dred and eighty-six remained in service at the close of that time; that three hundred and thirty-one had de- serted ; that two thousand two hundred and two had been discharged, leaving five thousand nine hundred AND nineteen unaccouuted for,"* The Rev. Mr. McCarty,.a chaplain in the army, wrote from the city of Mexico: "I have now in the regular army eleven hospitals to visit, with one in the Quarter- master's department, which requires a great deal of my time. The number on the sick report in this city exceeds three thousand men !" " We all know,"' said Mr. R. John- son in the Senate, '' that at the commencement of the last Session of Congress, there were actually buried on the banks of the Rio Grande, of those who had died of disease, twenty-five hundred men."f Col. Childs, in his official report, 13th Oct., 1847, states that on taking command of Puebla, the hospitals were "filled v/ith 1,800 sick." A New Orleans paper, noticing the return of the 3d and 4th Tennessee regiments, says that they lost 360 by death, although neither regiment had been in action.
The same paper declares, that of 419 men composing the Georgia battahon, 220 died in Mexico.